World Water Week - Mobilizing Innovations: Taking action on climate resilient sanitation

Sanitation and climate change are intrinsically interlinked. Poorly-managed sanitation emits greenhouse gases, while climate change damages and disrupts sanitation facilities and services and displaces people. This session will share the latest evidence on this topic, showcase innovations in climate resilient sanitation, and chart a course for global action.

Session Description

Climate change is drastically changing the world we live in. It not only devastates lives, but also undermines progress made in access to sanitation and efforts to achieve universal access to climate-resilient safe sanitation. To addressing this threat, we need to better understand how climate change threatens sanitation services and of how sanitation contributes to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and to climate resilience. Climate change damages sanitation service delivery through floods, sea level rise and extreme weather, damaging facilities, grounding service providers and hampering treatment processes. Additionally, poorly-managed sanitation systems emit significant amounts of GHGs, as much as 50% of a city’s total emissions.

To accelerate progress on climate resilient sanitation, the sector needs a stronger narrative backed with more research and evidence on the impact of climate change on sanitation and how sanitation can contribute to climate adaptation and mitigation.

This session will bring together key sector actors to discuss the latest research on how sanitation contributes to climate change, what is being done to limit those contributions, what adaptation measures are underway, and how they are performing. It will support ongoing efforts to build consensus in the understanding of climate resilient sanitation and the collective action needed.

Programme

• Welcome - Ann Thomas, Sr. WASH Advisor. UNICEF
• Keynote Address - Amgad ELmahdi, Water Sector Lead, Green Climate Fund
• Presentation: Current Findings on Climate Resilient Sanitation - Barbara Evans, Lecturer, University of Leeds
• Panel Discussion - Kate Medlicott, Team Lead - sanitation and wastewater, WHO; Gustavo Saltiel, Lead Water and Sanitation Specialist, World Bank; Md Tahmidul Islam, Technical Lead - Bangladesh, WaterAid; Sam Langat, Leader Africa, Sato
• Presentation: The Climate Resilient Sanitation Coalition - Antoinette Kome, Global Head of Water, SNV
• Panel Discussion -Sam Drabble, Head of Evaluation, WSUP; Romeo Bertolini, Deputy Director, NDC Partnership; Amelia Wenger, Conservation Scientist, Wildlife Conservation Society
• Closing Remarks - Ashton Mpofu, Vice Chair - Emerging Water Leaders, IWA